During this semester, I have worked on four genres and one professional genre to make a project all about autism. I was expected throughout these genres to make course goals and apply them to the project I was working on. I was able to find examples and have a brief description of how I fulfilled this goal.
A. Students will be able to compose for particular audiences and purposes. As I was working on this project, I realized quickly that it was important to find out that I was writing for and the purpose behind this. There are certain things that need to be done in order to satisfy a certain audience. I wanted to focus on my diary entry to show how I met the requirements for this goal. The audience I wanted to aim towards was for parents of children that are suffering from autism. I wanted them to be able to see what it is like for a person that is going through autism, and what the feelings of a parent might be. I first used language that would be emotional to a parent and keys words for autistic children such as with their symptoms and exactly how a parent would feel during this time. I organized it in chronological order starting from questioning whether the child has autism, finding out the child is suffering from autism, and what can be done to help a parent understand some steps in order to help a parent and a child cope with this disease. I wanted this genre to also be very easy to interpret so there was not much questioning of the things I was trying to get across.
B. Students will be able to compose using language and conventions appropriate to the genre.
The number one item I used to help me satisfy the area of using language and conventions appropriate to the genre I was working on were the Characteristics and Criteria charts. The characteristics component of the chart would show what things specifically needed to be incorporated in a specific genre. Each genre would need different items incorporated in it to make it the genre that it is. For my top 5 apps used to benefit children with autism, I listed as a characteristic was the use of a citation. This is very important to not be a victim of plagiarizing. A big part of this is being able to back of the work and the research you have conducted. The criteria side of the chart is used to show what would make this genre “pop” and a very well written piece. One piece I wanted to be able to incorporate is word variety. Without doing this for my third genre of a top 5 list, it would become very bland. An example of this would be finding the price of apps and going in depth with words that are relative to the applications. It is important to reiterate points you are trying to make, but don’t make it to the point where it becomes boring for the reader. I wanted to definitely use my language to make it an effective piece for my readers.
C. Students will be able to read, select, and use evidence critically to formulate and support arguments.
In high school, I had done a lot of work researching certain items for a project, and being able to use evidence of what I found to back up a point I was trying to make or support an argument of some sort. During this project, however, this was taken to a whole new level for the professional genre part of the assignment. I used something called a FAQ-1 sheet to do this. This sheet would have in it a quote that I found from a scholarly article, my interpretation of it, how I would it in a certain genre to help support my argument for other people to believe what I am saying, and what type of genre I might want to use to incorporate this information. This was broken down into four main areas: Facts, Arguments, Questions, and Integrations. This was extremely helpful in doing my professional genre, because this used a lot of facts that I needed to back up to support my argument. By doing this also, it helps to organize your thoughts and to be able to see overall the point you are trying to get across to your readers.
D. Students will be able to interpret and compose a variety of media and print/non-print genres.
By using something called Smart Moves, it was easy to be able to see different pieces throughout the class that were media and print/non-print genres. I was able to see how other people pieced their work together using the different genres in the different areas. The combination of print and non/ print items really does make a difference. For my four genres I chose a timeline, interview, top 5 list, and diary entry. The two non- genres were the interview and the diary entry. This was used to tell a lot of information in words rather than pictures and short captions. I used these two components in my timeline and top 5 list for the people that need to visually see things.
E. Students will be able to discuss and apply appropriate writing processes both individually and in collaborative contexts.
Having peer review and revision sheets together brought both of these components to life after doing a specific genre. For the peer review sessions, we would meet in a small group and analyze each other’s genres. Critically analyzing it, finding what was positive and negative about it, questioning why something was done, and making suggestions of the project were all a big part of this. After this was complete, a revision sheet would be the next thing we would use to correct any mistakes or the things to do better for our genre that was caught by our peers. Also, the revision sheet would be used to show the corrections that our professor had suggested. If there was a grammatical error, missing a word, words changes, etc., this is where we can a chance to show our correction. In my diary entry, my peers had caught the fact that I needed to use my emotional language during the piece because of the point I was trying to get across and the audience I was trying to have an influence over. I then took that suggestion and added more emotional language to my work. My professor also had caught grammatical errors in my piece that I had not caught and that would help benefit. Peer reviews and revision sheets take your genre from being good to truly an excellent scholarly piece of work.
A. Students will be able to compose for particular audiences and purposes.
As I was working on this project, I realized quickly that it was important to find out that I was writing for and the purpose behind this. There are certain things that need to be done in order to satisfy a certain audience. I wanted to focus on my diary entry to show how I met the requirements for this goal. The audience I wanted to aim towards was for parents of children that are suffering from autism. I wanted them to be able to see what it is like for a person that is going through autism, and what the feelings of a parent might be. I first used language that would be emotional to a parent and keys words for autistic children such as with their symptoms and exactly how a parent would feel during this time. I organized it in chronological order starting from questioning whether the child has autism, finding out the child is suffering from autism, and what can be done to help a parent understand some steps in order to help a parent and a child cope with this disease. I wanted this genre to also be very easy to interpret so there was not much questioning of the things I was trying to get across.
B. Students will be able to compose using language and conventions appropriate to the genre.
The number one item I used to help me satisfy the area of using language and conventions appropriate to the genre I was working on were the Characteristics and Criteria charts. The characteristics component of the chart would show what things specifically needed to be incorporated in a specific genre. Each genre would need different items incorporated in it to make it the genre that it is. For my top 5 apps used to benefit children with autism, I listed as a characteristic was the use of a citation. This is very important to not be a victim of plagiarizing. A big part of this is being able to back of the work and the research you have conducted. The criteria side of the chart is used to show what would make this genre “pop” and a very well written piece. One piece I wanted to be able to incorporate is word variety. Without doing this for my third genre of a top 5 list, it would become very bland. An example of this would be finding the price of apps and going in depth with words that are relative to the applications. It is important to reiterate points you are trying to make, but don’t make it to the point where it becomes boring for the reader. I wanted to definitely use my language to make it an effective piece for my readers.
C. Students will be able to read, select, and use evidence critically to formulate and support arguments.
In high school, I had done a lot of work researching certain items for a project, and being able to use evidence of what I found to back up a point I was trying to make or support an argument of some sort. During this project, however, this was taken to a whole new level for the professional genre part of the assignment. I used something called a FAQ-1 sheet to do this. This sheet would have in it a quote that I found from a scholarly article, my interpretation of it, how I would it in a certain genre to help support my argument for other people to believe what I am saying, and what type of genre I might want to use to incorporate this information. This was broken down into four main areas: Facts, Arguments, Questions, and Integrations. This was extremely helpful in doing my professional genre, because this used a lot of facts that I needed to back up to support my argument. By doing this also, it helps to organize your thoughts and to be able to see overall the point you are trying to get across to your readers.
D. Students will be able to interpret and compose a variety of media and print/non-print genres.
By using something called Smart Moves, it was easy to be able to see different pieces throughout the class that were media and print/non-print genres. I was able to see how other people pieced their work together using the different genres in the different areas. The combination of print and non/ print items really does make a difference. For my four genres I chose a timeline, interview, top 5 list, and diary entry. The two non- genres were the interview and the diary entry. This was used to tell a lot of information in words rather than pictures and short captions. I used these two components in my timeline and top 5 list for the people that need to visually see things.
E. Students will be able to discuss and apply appropriate writing processes both individually and in collaborative contexts.
Having peer review and revision sheets together brought both of these components to life after doing a specific genre. For the peer review sessions, we would meet in a small group and analyze each other’s genres. Critically analyzing it, finding what was positive and negative about it, questioning why something was done, and making suggestions of the project were all a big part of this. After this was complete, a revision sheet would be the next thing we would use to correct any mistakes or the things to do better for our genre that was caught by our peers. Also, the revision sheet would be used to show the corrections that our professor had suggested. If there was a grammatical error, missing a word, words changes, etc., this is where we can a chance to show our correction. In my diary entry, my peers had caught the fact that I needed to use my emotional language during the piece because of the point I was trying to get across and the audience I was trying to have an influence over. I then took that suggestion and added more emotional language to my work. My professor also had caught grammatical errors in my piece that I had not caught and that would help benefit. Peer reviews and revision sheets take your genre from being good to truly an excellent scholarly piece of work.